Although Texas made substantial gains educationally in the 1990s and the 2000s, especially on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), we have slipped badly in the 2010s. I have documented this fall abundantly in my blog here.

In my view, one huge contributing factor to Texas’ recent decline is that the powers-that-be act blind to the fact that we have declined. Indeed, many who brought on the policies that are most directly responsible for the decline are attempting to mislead the public into thinking all is great in the Lone Star State.

A State Representative, who will go unnamed, recently distributed a list of points that purport to show how great things are. The text of this list just came into my possession.

It is incredibly important that our citizens understand the facts. Most knowledgeable observers around the country realize the truth about Texas. We made substantial gains in the 1990s and 2000s. We’ve stagnated since. Our citizens must see the truth, ask why we’ve slipped, and demand action to restore us to the right path. So, in the interest of getting the facts right, here are the list’s claims, and here are rebuttals.

I. A. HERE’S A CLAIM:

Texas Leads U.S. in NAEP Eighth-Grade Mathematics Gains Among Mega-States. The average mathematics score for Texas eighth graders was 32 points higher in 2011 than in 1990. This increase was larger than in all other Mega-States. African-American eighth-graders in Texas scored 42 points higher in 2011 than in 1990.

Based on these data, and through a translation of these data to results on international tests, Texas also compares favorably to other nations.

B. HERE ARE THE FACTS

That’s right, BUT WHAT DID HE FORGET TO TELL YOU?

We did indeed make great gains from the early 1990s until 2011, some of the best in the nation. We were the envy of other states, and we compared favorably in 8th grade math everywhere.

This happened because we implemented one of the best accountability systems in the nation over those years.

But, in the late 2000s, the education bureaucrats began a campaign to weaken it, as evidenced first by the watered-down rating systems described below. In the early 2010s, they eviscerated it through lower standards and further weakening in accountability.

Is it any wonder that the creators of this list, who supported that evisceration, only display data from 2011? Look very closely at the period from 2011-2017, which shows the worst such trajectory in the land.

Here’s a picture over the whole period of 8th grade performance on the NAEP, in Texas, by racial groups:

Nearly every school district in Texas (98%) earned the highest rating for fiscal responsibility on the Financial Integrity Rating System of Texas. Nearly every district (95.8%) and nearly every school achieved the state’s “met standards” rating in the education accountability system in 2016.

B. HERE ARE THE FACTS:

Think about that for a moment. It strains the credulity of any reasonable observer to be told that everyone meets any real standard, and, even more, at the highest level.

What legitimate rating system shows everyone performing at the top? None. This makes Lake Wobegon, where “all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average,” appear to be using a rigorous standard!

Essentially, education bureaucrats have developed and installed a “rating system” that is NOT designed to rate results objectively but rather to make them look great. So, is it any surprise that they “look great?”

It was not always this way. In fact, when Texas’ achievement was improving (as opposed to now), the measurement system was more honest. Texas graded its schools generously, but fairly accurately. There was far greater variation in ratings in past years. Here are ratings in 2004.

If you want truly objective, useful ratings of Texas schools, look at the current Commissioner’s new system, or here, or here.

As to efficiency, if you’re looking for the elements of a solid analysis of Texas districts, examine this testimony from the Education Resource Group here.

III. A. HERE’S A CLAIM:

The list suggests that Texas is doing well with regard to college readiness and offers the following points: a) Texas has more early college high school campuses and more students participating in early college high school programs than elsewhere in the nation, and b) high school students posted strong passing rates for the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR®) end-of-course exams in Biology, Algebra I and U.S. History. Passing rates include 93% for Biology, 92% for US History, and 86% for Algebra.

B. HERE ARE THE FACTS:

As to whether Texas students are more graduation-ready, there are no data to support that assertion.

1. In fact, the THECB saw a decline in readiness and a flattening out in completion in recent years. As to college readiness statewide, the percent fell from 68% in 2011 to 58% in 2015. Look here.

SAT and ACT scores have gone nowhere positive in recent years. There are abundant data that show that our graduates are not any more prepared for college or career, and perhaps less so. Look here, here, here, here, and here.

2. As to bragging about the growing number of early college high schools, that’s all well and good. But the issue really is quality, not quantity. Here's the Texas Higher Education Commissioner expressing serious concern and real alarm about their quality generally.

3. As to the percentage of students “passing” end-of-course exams, the list ignores three crucial points.

First, the passing standard was set much lower than the levels teachers deemed necessary to constitute college/career readiness. This occurred mostly for the political reason that the bar had to be set at levels where the vast majority of students could pass. So, yes, they’ve jumped the low bar.

Second, in fact, the high percentage claimed “passing” is actually the percent “approaching” standard, NOT meeting standard. This is yet one more case of the author using false, inflated standards to claim success.

Third, Texas no longer has exams at junior and senior grades that show college/career readiness. This is so because the legislature eliminated all such tests several years ago. We have no statewide measures of achievement in the final high school years, either for accountability or even merely knowing students’ postsecondary readiness.

IV. A. HERE’S A CLAIM:

The list touts data showing that the national graduation rate has risen considerably over the past two decades, and that Texas’ rate has risen to even higher levels.

B. HERE ARE THE FACTS:

While it is true that official graduation rates have risen and the numbers do reflect some improvement, claims such as those in the list are exaggerated and dubious.

This is so because, according to most knowledgeable observers, there are serious questions about the legitimacy of graduation rate numbers, suggesting that a large share of the reported gains are overstated, if not, actually bogus. A sampling of the many articles expressing why are:here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

V. A. HERE’S A CLAIM:

When comparing students in similar socio-economic groups, U.S. students rank first in the world in reading, as measured by the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)…When comparing U.S. schools with less than 10% poverty to those countries with less than 10% poverty, U.S. ranks No. 1.

B. HERE ARE THE FACTS:

Of all the doozies in the list, the best comes last!

As to the PISA claims, we must begin with the fact that the US has fallen badly in recent years on PISA, especially in math. Here's an account of the fall.

Further, as to reading, the US dropped from 504 in 2000 to 497 in 2015. One can only suspect that the author is using older data from a time when we were doing better, probably in 2012.

BUT, MOST IMPORTANT, the author is pulling a serious sleight of hand.

First, we’re nowhere near #1. The US is now average and dropping.

The author is saying IF we compared our schools with less than 10% poverty (very few and the most elite) to countries with less than 10% poverty (very few), then, we’d be #1.

This is a sad, deceptive trick. The US is about average in every way one can judge. Our top performers are average. Our weaker, low-income students are average in their group. We’re not only below the well-to-do nations; we’re also below Portugal, Poland, Slovenia, and Estonia.

About the only result in the PISA data on reading that’s positive is that the US made progress in reducing the equity gap. But for the author to spotlight that, he’d have to give credit to NCLB and other accountability measures, and I doubt he’d want to do that.

Interestingly, I see lessons in that success for us in how we can use accountability to improve public education. Here are some thoughts.

First, it begins with the idea in baseball as well as most things that are important in life that winning matters. We value success, whether it is winning the championship or earning higher profits or educating youngsters successfully to high standards.

Second, we measure what we treasure. We win or lose. We boost or languish in earnings. We have higher or lower cure rates. We get more or less bang for the buck in our charitable giving. Likewise, we have youngsters in school who are provably more or less proficient in their academics. In all cases, we know how we stack up because we establish objective measures of how well we succeed or fail at what we do.

Third, we face consequences for how we do what we do. This rounds out the true meaning and purpose of accountability. What do we do differently after we measure?

In education, do we improve teaching and learning? Do we make our plans more detailed and effective to lead to better results? In business, do we improve service? Do we make the process more efficient? Do we improve worker skills?

What I find most interesting about the Diamond article on the Astros’ is what it teaches us about accountability in baseball.

First, as the General Manager makes clear in the article and the players said in their post-Series interviews, success is the bottom line. The team had a relentless focus on results, on winning. And that meant getting to the Series through wins and winning four out of seven games once there.

Second, success involves data and analytics. Both team management and players bought into the importance of both gathering and using data in decisions about personnel, policies, and practices.

We have seen this drive toward more and better analytics in baseball ever since the days of Billy Beane with the Oakland A’s. We saw the importance of analytics in the Cubs’ championship last year. And, according to Diamond and others, the Astros have recently been the best in the game at analytics.

But while success in most things requires analytics; it requires more. To start, yes, it entails a commitment by all in the organization to wins and winning. Then, it involves a commitment to data and analytics. But, here’s the key thing the Astros found: it’s also chemistry and culture. The Astros paid attention to both the numbers and the names, to the measures and the humans.

Management opened up to sharing data with players. In decision after decision, as pitcher Dallas Keuchel says, “each player became a person.” Veterans were brought on board not only to play, but also to help guide the newcomers. The manager made decisions on whether to keep a pitcher on the mound based on visible signs of success, as well as numbers.

A phenomenal esprit de corps developed, which was visible to all who watched. And, thus, the team - with the data and the culture - won the championship.

We have many winning schools, and there are great lessons to be learned from them. But, as to the proper use of accountability, our new world champions teach us much as well.

Eli Broad just announced his retirement from leadership in his foundation. I want to use the occasion to pay tribute to him and express gratitude for all he has done to improve the nation’s schools. In my view, he was without peer among major philanthropists in making a positive difference in this arena.

First, I want to focus precisely on his dedication to the reform effort and his decision to be a partner with others in the cause, rather than being merely a “lone ranger.” This is no small thing. I recall with sadness the many instances in which very rich benefactors came on the scene with “magic bullets,” their own solutions to fix the schools. They’d throw millions, if not billions, at implementing favored solutions. And, of course, needed talent and energy would go flying in the direction of dollars, weakening and diluting the energy that was required to stay on course in sustaining effective reform.

Not so with Eli Broad. Don’t get me wrong. He had a mind of his own and could be tough in pushing his ideas. But he always worked with a sense of mutuality within the scope of the overall reform movement.

I’ll never forget his hosting a dinner in honor of Rod Paige during the period of President Bush’s inauguration. Though an extremely active Democrat, he made clear to me that night that he wanted to work closely with us to promote shared visions of education reform.

He was always true to his promise, during both the Bush and Obama presidencies.

I know of no one who did more or better work at pushing improvement in his own district. Los Angeles is one of the most difficult districts. Yet, Broad fought for the good, with both smarts and tenacity. He didn’t always win, but he won more often than virtually all others who took on similar campaigns. He tried and kept trying, which is rare. And, because of him and others, we actually saw two forward surges in LA, one with Governor Romer and the other in recent years.

The Broad Foundation’s Prize for Urban Education represented one of the most inspired school reform strategies that emerged during the peak of the reform movement. From 2002-2014, urban districts that made the greatest academic progress, especially for disadvantaged students, won recognition and additional funding for scholarships.

For most of its existence, the Prize did exactly what Broad’s theory of action expected. Leaders in many districts made changes to drive better results, by keeping their “eyes on the Prize.”

The program wasn’t perfect and was suspended when it appeared it was no longer sufficiently having the intended effect. Nevertheless, the Broad Prize provided an unmatched single boost to encouraging attention to data and the use of data to strengthen decision making and policy setting in our nation’s urban districts.

Eli Broad saw that effective charter schools were becoming one of the most successful ways to lift the education of children in need. So, he and the Foundation became prominent and significant boosters of effective charter schools. This happened in many ways, including the creation of a separate Prize for the best charter systems as well as major grants to the best charters.

One special feature of Eli Broad’s leadership was his insistence on getting results in the form of improved achievement. It wasn’t about funding things he simply conceived as good. Broad was atypically rigorous in establishing the theory of action of what he funded and demanding in its execution. This was so in his charitable work as it had been earlier in his commercial career. He did this because he thought student success in his “new business” was as crucial as profits in his “old business.”

A good example is the Broad Academy. So many other philanthropists fund professional development for teachers or leaders based on favored training strategies. However nobly motivated, they invariably don’t work. Broad concluded rightly that the people he supported must be effective leaders in their own right. Once especially promising people were identified, quality training could begin.

As a result, the Broad Academy has graduated some of the very best state chiefs, superintendents, and other district leaders we have in the nation.

I have two distinct emotions in the wake of Eli Broad’s announcement. One is profound gratitude for his extraordinary contributions. The other is a sadness that those who fight to improve education have just lost one of their best leaders.

Yesterday was – ethically - a pretty bad day, specifically as to wronging others with words.

It began with the news that the President’s new Communications Director had called a reporter and trashed his colleagues in the White House. Actually, it was worse than that. This fellow used the crudest language. He bloated his own power. And he did all this - stupidly - with a reporter who despises the Administration. And, if that weren’t enough, after being exposed for all this foolishness, he apologized, not for what he did, but rather for trusting reporters too much. (Don’t you just love apologies that don’t apologize?)

It didn’t get better. Yesterday was, as you know, the day the Senate voted on amendments to repeal and replace ObamaCare. I realize both sides have strong ethical feelings about their substantive positions on health care. I have my own. I believe both ObamaCare and the proposals to replace it are flawed. There are several efficient and effective ways to provide access to affordable care for all that never seem to come into play. But, while recognizing their great importance, I’ll leave policies aside, for now.

I want to focus here on the awful ways in which people treated each other in social media in anticipation of, and following, the votes.

One pair of folks I know, and tend otherwise to admire, began their attack on Senator John McCain early last night. Suspecting he was going to vote for the Republican position, they went at him hard. One fellow engaged in a purely ad hominem assault, condemning the Senator as just a horrible guy. The other raised the old Keating Five matter, never making clear whether McCain was guilty or unethical or just at fault for appearance, and the relevance of opening up that old wound in the first place. But, hell, what difference do facts and relevance make? What needed to be said was that McCain is just “a bad guy.”

Then another pair attacked the Republicans on process, for failing to let the public know the details of their bill before the debate began. This was an awful sin, they asserted.

When confronted with the fact that the Democrats did much the same thing when the final bill on ObamaCare came to the Senate floor years earlier, they were unrelenting. “That’s not the point,” they “screamed” back. “This isn’t about procedure; it’s about screwing the poor.” Ah, had they just said so at the outset, instead of insisting the “sin” was unfair procedure.

As the evening wore on, everyone was surprised to learn that McCain actually provided the vote that killed the Republican proposal. Did the earlier pair come back to apologize or give him credit? No, they did not. But others who had been savaging him all week came on to praise him now as a true American hero.

After the vote, Senator McConnell gave a speech on the floor, expressing his regret and sadness at the loss. But, lo and behold, a fellow I know from the world of education reform, decided to tweet venom, blasting McConnell for his audacity in even speaking, I guess. “How dare you, McConnell,” he fumed. You’d think the victor would tolerate the loser’s moment to comment.

Finally, to close out the night, another fellow I know had to show up and accuse Trump’s new Communications Director of coming into government to assure success in a private business deal. When confronted with a request for evidence to back up this serious charge, this fellow, I’m happy to report, expressed regret.​I confess to having engaged in some undesirable political speech myself over the years. But, just watching all this yesterday, I realized how serious (and worsening) a problem we have in the public square with poisoned, political speech. This is a terrible blight on our democracy.

The latest round of reports on student achievement shows a continuing, flat-to-down trajectory that is plaguing both Texas and the nation. This trend is extremely discouraging, especially given the fact that results had generally been improving nationally since the early 2000s, and, in some states, since the mid-1990s, that is, until recently.

We begin with the results for 15 year-old students taking the most recent Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) administered throughout many nations in the fall of 2015. While the PISA suffers in that it is not as closely aligned to our own standards and curricula as, say, are the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) and the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS); it does measure against globally acknowledged goals, and its results add evidence of student achievement to that of the other assessments.

Here are some caveats we should establish at the start of our review. First, we won’t examine the reading results because, for the most part, they have been flat for many years for most nations, including the U.S. Second, I do not want to make too much of small, marginal changes in results because they are not significant. But the data do suggest trends that ought, at least, for purposes of further study, encourage us to develop hypotheses about the direction in which we are headed. That direction, it should be clear, has basically not been positive since 2009. https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/pisa/idepisa/

Let us start with the observation that the U.S. has fallen 17 points in math and 6 points in science from 2009-2015.

The drop in science is discouraging because the U.S. had risen 13 points from 2006-2009. Had we made another 13 point gain from 2009-2015, instead of losing ground, we would be well above the PISA average and in the upper tier on the list of nations.

The drop in math is discouraging as well. The U.S. had fallen back from 2003-2006 but made a substantial gain of 13 points from 2006-2009. Had we made another 13 point gain by 2015, we would now be 10 points ahead of the average, having gotten even with or passed many of our peers that we now still lag.

It is a fact that many nations have been relatively flat in recent years, though there are exceptions, such as Norway, which has risen nicely. And some previous high fliers, such as Finland, have fallen considerably. But the main point is this: it is simply unacceptable that student performance in our nation has fallen further on an international measure that has long revealed our competing at a mediocre level.

Texas had been a leader in education policy from the early 1990s through the mid-2000s and had, as a result, garnered some of the most improved student achievement results in the nation. The state began to go soft as we entered the 2010s and thereafter actually promoted and implemented policies that lowered standards and eviscerated accountability.

It is true that Commissioner Mike Morath and certain Senate leaders are taking constructive steps that one hopes will cause a turnaround in the near future. On behalf of our young people, we certainly must hope so. During the time the educrats and their enablers have been at the helm, we have rather blithely sailed into a storm that is beginning to do extraordinary damage to our young people.

The regular session of the Texas Legislature has now come to an end. As to education policy, there are many reasons to find both positives and negatives in the work of lawmakers. And, of course, one’s priorities and perspectives will shape how one assesses the outcomes we review this week.​

As for me, a long time believer that standards and accountability have lifted student achievement in our state in past decades, I am generally pleased. This is so, not because I believe our policy is once again sound and strong, but rather because I think there’s finally been a turn for the better in Texas.

I’m pleased that the Legislature retained the A-F accountability system, and in fairly reasonable form. True, the implementation of the system is further delayed, and the Legislature created an uncertain local component down the road. These are worrisome and cause for continuing concern. But the outcome is far better than seemed likely at the session’s outset, and there’s a firmer basis for hope in the future than we’ve had in recent years.

Many educrats wanted to scrap A-F altogether. And the House bill, for all practical purposes, would have thoroughly nullified accountability. But, due mostly to the efforts of Senate Education Chairman Larry Taylor and Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, accountability will be preserved. District and school evaluations will be based substantially on objective achievement data; closing the gaps for poor and minority students will remain important criteria; and appropriate consequences are expected for low performing schools.

I’m pleased that HB 515, a bill that would have eliminated assessments for writing and history/social studies, has died. It was widely assumed at the beginning of the session that this bill would pass, and had the House had its way, it would have. Again, Senate leadership saved the day.

I’m pleased that choice for parents received a boost in the session. Charter schools get access to the Permanent Fund to make financing easier and more doable. And, while the Senate’s proposal for limited choice through ESAs for parents of students with disabilities did not pass in the end, its progress represents movement in the long march to more parental options. There will be increasing pressure over time to implement such proposals.

In that regard, I’m pleased that Lieutenant Governor Patrick and Chairman Taylor sent a clear and unmistakable message to educrats that more money must be accompanied by more choice and more accountability. This is the first time in several years that the Senate has pushed back so hard on the “just say no to change” crowd.

Texas made great gains in student achievement in the 1990s and 2000s, largely because governors and Senate leaders pushed the reform agenda aggressively. The House typically either cooperated or actually joined in leading the effort in those years. Now the House merely embraces the status quo and, even worse, outright opposes reform, choice, and accountability. One hopes for new leadership and views in the state House. But, in the meantime, it’s important to see the Senate push back effectively and insist on positive change.

Finally, it’s consequential that this current crew of anti-reform educrat leaders continues to suffer loss after loss, first, in the school finance litigation and, now, in its failed agenda in the legislative session.​ It’s time for teachers, administrators, school boards, and their supporters to send new leaders and a new approach to Austin. The unbending position of “no accountability/no choice/but lots of $$” is bad for the state and doesn’t even work well for educators. It should be changed to a more student/parent/taxpayer-friendly posture of cooperation, compromise, and mutual agreement that involves ways of moving forward together.

This more positive sort of approach from the education community was pivotal to the progress Texas made in past decades. It would be healthy and helpful for our state and our students if it returned.

It occurs to me that in the old days critics of student testing were worried that the tests might have the effect of "narrowing the curriculum." Their fear, more specifically, was that state tests in reading and math would encourage schools to spend inordinately large amounts of time on reading and math, perhaps to the exclusion of teaching in social studies, writing, science, et. al.

Several steps were taken to reduce the likelihood of such an effect. For example, at the encouragement of social studies and other area teachers, a small, but reasonable amount of state testing was added in such subjects as history and writing to help assure balance.

Now, in Texas and certain other states, anti-accountability forces are pressing to end all testing that is not required by federal law, that is, all but reading and math.​

Do these advocates understand that such a move will re-create the pressure to "narrow the curriculum" that so worried their predecessors?

Do you ever hear or read of advances in education policy or practice in Texas any more? It was common in the 1990s and 2000s to see research and other notices of significant advances in Texas. No more. As I have posted, to the contrary now, Texas lags in virtually all areas. And our student achievement, as measured by NAEP, college/career readiness, postsecondary completion, et. al., has stalled or actually declined.

1) The state will continue to fail to measure, and hold schools accountable, for students being ready for post-secondary success;

​2) The state will now fail to measure for student success in writing, a skill that employers and higher education highly value;

3) The state will now fail altogether to measure student knowledge in social studies in high school by eliminating the end of course exam in US history. This piles on earlier decisions by the state to no longer require, or measure proficiency in, courses in the sciences beyond biology and in math beyond geometry;

4) The state will no longer have statewide comparability in measuring success toward learning to state standards because it will allow districts to adopt tests from a wide variety of assessments that may not be well aligned with each other or the state’s standards.

This means that the foundation for fair and meaningful accountability will be blown up, that is, if the federal government allows the state to depart from the requirements of federal law to do so; and

5) The state, which has sworn off the Common Core standards, will permit districts to use assessments based on the Common Core standards, rather than the standards approved by Texas educators and policymakers.

Sadly, I am 100% confident that these new steps of descent will set our young people back even further. God willing, I will be around to sound the trumpet. But, whether the public will hold the “leaders” who are doing this damage accountable or not, our kids will suffer incalculably. And so will our state.

As an early participant in the movement to bring greater accountability to education, I have always thought that the work of accountability would be in constant need of revising and updating. With greater experience, learning from mistakes, and advances in know-how and technology, we should always keep making adjustments and improvements. Accountability 1.0 should proceed to Accountability 2.0, and so on.​

Now we’re entering a new phase of retrenchment. Under the banner of the so-called Every Student Succeeds Act, states are using their expanded authority to re-define accountability. Organizations such as the Chiefs for Change and the Foundation for Excellence in Education are encouraging states to keep and improve real accountability. Some states, to their credit, are following the advice. Colorado appears to be an example. https://edexcellence.net/articles/touchdown-colorado-a-school-rating-system-that-gets-the-basics-right

But many (I fear, a majority) seem to be using the occasion to weaken accountability even further and are finding the most bizarre ways to do so.

Just today I read Connecticut’s plan. Reasonably, they propose to hold schools accountable with multiple criteria. But when one gets to the small print one can see what is really going on. They propose to use chronic absenteeism, physical fitness, and access to art programs, et al., in ratings. I cannot for the life of me figure out how schools can objectively be held accountable for such things.

Several states are considering severely watering down or outright abandoning their decisions to use A-F systems for evaluating and holding schools accountable. This is not to say A-F is easy or perfect. But Florida and other states have shown how A-F can be extremely effective in improving school performance and student achievement.

The best I can tell is that these new systems are basically designed to deem virtually all schools adequate and limit as much as possible any requirement of needed change, even in mediocre or weak schools.

New systems could and should improve accountability. They could emphasize growth in new and better ways. They could be creative and effective in assuring that schools move students down multiple pathways that assure readiness for college or career. They could find a good balance between tests and other desirable outputs, always insisting on valid, reliable, and objective measures that are both important and fair. And, perhaps most important, they could do a better job than earlier accountability systems in using data and proven practice to make the chief consequence of accountability the improvement of teaching and learning.

But, sadly, many of the schemes I’ve seen don’t do any of the above. They obfuscate. They excuse. They give up. They move to nonsensical means to pretend to measure factors that are either not measurable or are inputs beyond the control of schools. Mainly, they make the schools look better than they are by giving them much higher grades than would befit the learning of their students.

Worst of all, we’re perhaps seeing the most cynical sort of outcome. Those who are supposed to be held accountable for success in educating students with the public funds to which they’ve been entrusted are changing policy in ways that make the word, “accountable,” really mean “non-accountable.” Because of this fraud, this most recent development is worse than failing to move forward to Accountability 2.0; it may even be worse than moving back to Accountability 0.0.

No, here's where the 94 percent number comes from. When the educrats last lowered the bar in the way the state evaluates schools' performance, they pushed the education commissioner to give roughly 94 percent of the schools a passing grade. Those doing "a dang fine job" were actually lumped together with the average, the mediocre and the not-quite-awful to make up 94 percent.

The legislature created the A-F grading system in the 2015 session to correct for this shameful and dishonest grading system.

Under the new law, the commissioner published preliminary grades late last year for our schools. The educrats didn't like the grades, largely for two reasons: they weren't as high as were the previous bloated grades, and the bases for some of the ratings could indeed have been improved.

Well - instead of working with the commissioner to improve them, what did the educrats decide to do? They're now pressing the legislature to dump A-F or lower the bar further until they can get back as close as possible to being able to say "94 percent are doing a dang fine job."

The question arises: why don't legislative leaders encourage the field to work with the commissioner to fine-tune the system he implemented? The current law has plenty of give, including the opportunity to use other measures than test scores.

No, that wouldn't satisfy the educrats. They want to go further than lowering the bar; they want to obliterate it altogether.

This is especially evident in the House bill the educrats are pushing. Here local districts would be allowed to count input factors, output factors that can't be objectively measured, and tests based on standards other than the state’s to affect the ratings. Schools wouldn't even be given a grade, and the whole evaluation system would be postponed another year. Why should we even pretend to have a state accountability system? https://www.texastribune.org/2017/03/16/education-committee-chairs-push-major-edits-f-ratings/

This is part of a continuing effort on the part of educrats and their enablers generally to lower the bar in education. They pushed for and got a dummying down of course requirements, especially in math and science. They pushed for and got a dummying down of our performance standards so that proficiency in key high school courses is not essential to graduation. They pushed for and got, as mentioned above, a dummying down of our accountability criteria so that virtually all schools get a passing grade.

The existential question arises: does the system exist for the benefit of the adults who run it or the children it's intended to serve? Surely, we know that whether standards are raised or lowered is a good guide to the answer. We raise standards when we care about results and require better results for children. We lower standards when we choose to prize others’ priorities.

Texas made great gains for our students in the 1990s and early 2000s. http://www.bushcenter.org/essays/bigidea/ Since then we have fallen back badly. It's time, fellow citizens, to reverse course, for the sake of our state and our children.